Why Counseling Needs to Be Part of Our TTC Journey

After reading many TTC Stories, we notice that nearly every couple that suffers from infertility has a need to take care of their mental health. Getting pregnant could be very difficult and take years sometimes. All the frustration and disappointment could be really harmful for a relationship, physical condition and even fertility. This is why Eva’s World invites Justine Brooks, a mental health consultant who specializes in infertility therapy, to talk about the importance of counseling during infertility treatments. Whether you are just trying to get pregnant or facing infertility issues, you can learn what your mind needs during TTC in this article.

In full disclosure, I think counseling needs to be part of our general life protocol.

Life is difficult. There will always be seasons where we need a person to help us through the dark.

Yes, I am biased as I am a mental health therapist myself. Every day I work with clients to help them change their lives for the better. Every day I help people to choose to do the work of being okay when their lives haven’t turned out the way they had hoped.

But mostly I am biased because my own life has never been more manageable, healthier and happier, all since working with my own therapist regularly, since surviving my own failed infertility treatments.

As a therapist who also specializes in working with clients through the infertility journey, and thereafter, I have my top three reasons I think infertility clinics need to, not only provide mental health resources during treatments, but also make it part of the protocol.

Here are your appointment times.

Here is your list of medications and when to take them.

Here is what you can and cannot do.

Here is your list of recommended therapists. And yes, you must have an appointment scheduled within a week.

Too far? I don’t think so, at least not from what I am seeing every single day in my office. And so, here are my top 3 reasons I think counseling needs to be a part of the infertility protocol:

What if it made treatments more successful, or in the least, not so painful?

Having a space to talk through this difficult process is a must. And I think, it must be someone besides your medical team and your partner going through it with you. Counseling is a place for you to not only occasionally vent your frustrations but to also learn where your power lies. What is in your control through this difficult process?

We won’t completely lose ourselves in the battle.

The schedules, the side effects, the waiting timelines, the emotional, physical and financial stresses can be all consuming. Counseling can help us to hold onto who we are, and better yet who we want to be, through this process. It also can take the pressure off our relationship being the only source of peace through the process. Counseling can help us to determine what our enough and everything is; knowing when enough is enough and making sure we are not completely destroyed by the battle.

We deserve it; we must learn we are enough.

No matter how your infertility journey turns out; we are all worth of love and belonging. We have the power to define our own happy ending. Yes some of us will not get the hoped for result. But, even those of us who do will be forever changed. Counseling can help you know we choose how we are forever healing. Counseling can help you to cope with the lifelong losses this journey comes with, no matter your end result.

Much like the metamorphosis the caterpillar endures inside the chrysalis, counseling is the work many of us need to emerge the butterfly.

My hope, my wish, my prayer is that we invest in ourselves to learn we are worthy of this happy, healthy life no matter what.

Check out Justine’s website Ever Upward to learn more about this topic.